Yeats (he made a song out of When You
Are Old. I’ve got the tape. One day I’ll listen
to it again. When I’m old. It’s so beautiful, I
can’t face it); Larkin’s novels; Fawlty
Towers (on VHS); Peter Sarstedt (after a
few drinks, mind you); and this town, he
loved this town. And when he said hello or
said goodbye, he’d hug me tight and slap
my back. He was quite small, but he had the
hug of a big man.
When we die, our lives become stories,
don’t they? But the shock of it is true. Not
the shock of his dying. The shock of his ever
having lived. The shock of it is true.
Nick Coad is a tattoo artist from
Fife, Scotland. His main influences
include new school tattoo and
comic art.